I was outside this morning getting ready to take off my heads in the search for my block casting number, and I got smacked on the back with what felt like 100 pounds of steel. You guessed it, I'm SICK of all the metal on these cars. It's been a pretty annoying issue for a while. So far, my doors, better known as tanks have bent a few sets of hinges, my hood struts are just completely gone, and I'm tired of having a 3000+ pound car. The point of this is, does anyone know where to buy an original like IROC hood, made of fiberglass, or some fiberglass fenders? I've already found fiberglass doors. I'm going to wind up needing these parts anyway, before I can even think of getting my IROC painted sometime in 2010. I have a few small dents on my fenders and doors, not really noticable in blue, but once I go black, it'd be embarrassing just from how bad it would show.

I would say you won't find an exact replica of the iroc hood in fiberglass, however they do make an aftermarket hood called the iroc Daytona ibelive that looks similat but has a cowl scoop alo. Their is also the factory fiberglass hoods from 82-84 camaros. As for fenders they are usally more expensive than what they save you in weight. They usually weght around 8lbs in fiberglass and 12-14 in steel not much of an inprovement. I belive you can find fiberglass parts website in a sticky in aftermarket parts review, on called U22 or something like that.

The fiberglass doors are proly a bad idea, alot of people on here are gonna yell at ya for bringing that up on a street car.

BTW you don't have to take the heads of to find the casting number, the out the last 3 numbers on the side of the block and that is all you need to find what block you have. you can actually see them from underneath if you look had enough.

Everything that you could ever need in fiberglass.

http://www.eharwood.com/catalog/cata...ple&Submit2=GO

Cam

I've seen that Daytona hood, it's pretty neat, I've thought about it. But if I was going to go for an aftermarket/custom look, I'd probably go with the SS, it's one mean looking hood. I think 6 pounds on each fender would be neat, just for replacing a body part. That's not bad, 12 pounds for body parts that will be necessary for me come next year, when it'll hopefully be time for my paint job.

But yeah, up22, I've been to their site once, I got annoyed with it because when I went there, nothing was categorized, it was just a list of things. Looks like they have some fiberglass fenders.

It's going to be complicated just to save a couple hundred pounds, very complicated. Especially with finding most of the body parts for these cars. I've already stripped most of my interior, including that extremely thick sound proofing on the rear wheel wells, all of the other sound proofing in the hatch area, up to under the back seats. I took out the back seats themselves. The radio, along with all four speakers. Basically I just put the carpet back down for it to look half way decent.

Ah, the quest to have a light American 80's car.....

if you ever drive the car on the street, fiberglass doors are a really bad idea. Side impact=you dead

as for fenders, the 3rd gen fenders are not that large and for that matter not that heavy, you wont save much weight, if any, with glass fenders.

check VFN, they also have a lot of glass parts

I know what you mean by getting hit with the hood. today i was out chasing an electric fan problem and had to use vise-grips wrapped with electric tape to hold the hood up. it seems when it is cold the hood wants to shut on me.

I'm not too concerned about that, if I get T-boned by a car at even 20 miles per hour I could be dead, with a steel door. As I've stated, these are parts that are going to be necessary to replace, I believe I have a side picture of the of my IROC, you can see how crooked my fenders are, I don't know what happened to them. It would be nice to save 10-15 pounds here and there, I'm in the process of learning how to weld, and I plan on putting in my own 8-10 point roll cage. So the weight will be right back on, I just do not want to gain any.

I have full electric seats also, they also could be a significant weight loss, IF! I could afford some $1,699.00 Sparco Milano Prestige's! I really was laughing when I saw the price of them, with two of them seats, it'd be enough for me to buy a second Third Gen that's in decent shape!

I forgot. Here's a picture of basically the side of my IROC. In some pictures it seems to have a pretty decent body, which it does, with the exception of the door, and funky bent fender. There's also some orange peel in there. I'm not sure if it was a cheap paint job done before I owned it, or the metal just has lots of dings from just being driven over the years.

My main concern is, if I managed to save up and dump nearly $3,000 into a paint job alone, I want the body to look perfect. I'd like to go to some shows once in a while.

Dumb question but whatever, you sure the fender is bent? Ever try to re-align it??

like i said before, i dont think you will loose much, if any weight with glass fenders, th3e metal ones are pretty light.

as for crashing, a glass door will do nothing, a car at 5mph would drive right through it. The stock doors in these cars can take a serious hit, they are strong.
You cant even use regular windows with the glass doors, need to use lexan, the regulator assemblies wont work in them, so that means your windows wont be able to be opened.

Why go through all that hassle and make the car unsafe? i dont care how much weight the doors will save, im telling you, its a terrible idea for a street car.

I know, I've realized that. I was talking to one of the many companies that sells them fiberglass doors. They just are not streetable at all. I'm pretty bothered by that, the steel doors are pretty heavy, and I'm aiming for light. It doesn't mix.

Dumb question? I'm looking for some decently light-weight replacement body parts that are needed anyway, how is that dumb? Please explain. In 2010 I'm hoping to have my IROC nearly perfect, show ready, depending on if I have thousands to drop into a paint job. I live in southern Delaware, near multiple beaches, and close to O.C., there's a ton of car shows. I'd like to go, and not be embarrassed of it's body.

If you feel that this is dumb, please by all means, just edit your post, erase it, and forget that you ever clicked this thread.

As for your question, yes, it is bent, it was bent from the bottom, up-wards. Look at the difference from the height of the middle of the door, and the middle of the fender. I guess you'd call it the "trim line". They don't match up. I was hoping I could simply re-align it.

Hey from looking at your picture I think your body looks pretty good I don't think I would replace the parts on the passenger side anyway. As far as the alignment with your fender it does look to be off but it looks like your door is also slightly out of alignment it looks like the bottom of the door sticks out a little bit but just under the center of the door is flush. If I were you I would try to get the doors aligned first and then get the fenders into shape, I think this is the way the pros do it I saw it on a tv show a while back. I'm not sure if you are doing all this weight saving because you plan on racing it or what but if you've gutted a lot of your interior it probably won't be a show car anyway so maybe you would want to consider painting the car yourself it would save you some money to put into performance parts

check out http://www.autobody101.com/ there is a good article about body panel alignment on there and good info about painting a vehicle

by the way good choice on not using the fiberglass doors

well, you could swap from power windows to manual and save some weight, im sure you can lighten the stock door with some cutting and redesign on the innards.

I'm planning on talking to one of my friends, who's into bodywork, and see what he says about the doors, if they're basically usable, or maybe I can pick up some new door skins. The fenders need to be replaced though, in the original post of this thread, I mentioned they're dented. It's a small dent, not really noticeable, but If I go along with my plan and get a black paint job, it will show, horribly. They aren't really a big deal, $199 each, not too bad. It's dented right on top, near where the fender curves up towards the hood, there's basically no chance of saving it, not worth the hassle.

I am pretty glad I got some more information on them fiberglass doors, the site I originally found them on didn't list anything of that nature about them being for race use only.

By the way, that right there was priceless. I might have to make that quote a part of my signature!

not sure if your looking for help figuring out the body panel alignment issue or not but if you are, a good picture of the fender/ hood gap would help, along with a full door/ fender pic. ok you caught me, I'm just curious.

There is a slight gap between the fender and the hood, it's not enough to cause that kind of gap between the door and fender though. It's maybe a whole 2 or 3 millimeters, if that. I'll try to get some pictures later tonight.

Can this happen by NOT using the propper jacking points? My right fender is off similar to that, & the jack area is pretty much bent up.The left side is fine & so is the jack area.
The car has never been crashed.
Black does look good on 3rd gens!!

It most definitely can. I jacked my Camaro up right under the fender when I replaced my shifter cable, didn't do anything, but it definitely can. Possibly that's what happened with the last owner, I don't know, it's been bent/out of line since I bought the car.

These are pictures of my IROC only a couple days after I brought it home. Good times, I coincidentally brought the car home on my birthday, of 2008, wasn't planned at all, made the deal in July.



Gas cap is bent a little too......

By the way, about the black, it does look awesome. My hood is partially black! I'm almost there! Hopefully it will be completely black soon. Haha.

I was talking about MY question being dumb.

Haha, I'm really sorry man. The lack of sleep can get even the best of people.

I don't know of a set of doors that are "street" doors---Harwood's are "race weight" glass and don't have provisions for window mechanisms, etc..... I'm sure they could be made to work, but it'd take a good glass man a bunch of hours to get it done.....

I'm using 'glass doors on my '82, but it will just have removable (NOT ROLLDOWN) windows... Glass panels are going to be much, much more labor intensive to get a show car fit on them.... Possibly something has been tweaked on the right side of your car, could be improper jacking or maybe a trip in the ditch or some other form of impact that moved some of the inner structure around......

Yeah I realized that a couple days ago, about when I first made this thread. It's really disappointing, I wish there were more of an aftermarket for these cars, in the fiberglass and carbon fiber area.

A few months ago I was thinking of ordering a carbon fiber cowl that's made for Third Gens, but I changed my mind, cowls just really aren't my cup of tea. I also was thinking about the SS Hood, but it'd be a waste, it's a non functional hood. I'd feel like a total r!cer.

I emailed a company that makes custom fiberglass parts, and asked if they could make an OEM IROC hood, I'll be expecting a reply similar to this. "Sure! It will just be in the range of $1,500-$2,000.".

This has me wanting to learn how to make fiberglass, I wish I actually knew how. I'd just use my existing parts as molds. It'd be pretty neat to have the satisfaction that I personally made my own doors, and hood.

Could proly get away with glass doors if you install a roll cage with door bars. But then your just adding weight back into the car, but on the other hand it is saftey.

I'm planning on having a roll cage anyway. I'd like to have a Camaro with mainly fiberglass body panels, that's about 3,000 pounds, or under. But, I am no dummy when it comes to safety. Heck, roll cages even look awesome. I'm also going to be taking a pretty heavy hit in the weight department when I get air conditioning and heat in my IROC, for the second time.

Making your own fiberglass molds and parts is neither cheap nor easy!!!! A quality set of door molds, inner and outer, with provisons for all the OEM stuff would not be a beginners' task IMO.... Then when you try to sell them, if everything doesn't bolt on and fit perfectly you end up with a bunch of folks saying your stuff is no good!!!!! If somebody will make you a quality OEM IROC hood, and have to first build the molds, do all the tooling for hood hinge and latch mounts, etc. you would be getting one heck of a good deal!!!! Time and labor for the inner and outer molds for a hood or door would easily exceed $1,000.00. I make some one-off molds for my own stuff, it is a very, very time consuming process.......

Hey sorry for trying to help you save some money. I obviously can see your body panels are out of alignment when I said "Hey from looking at your picture I think your body looks pretty good" I was talking about dents and door dings and what not if you don't like the advice I apologize for wasting your time.

I had my fender completely off last night, and set it next to the driver's side fender for comparison, it is bent just a little bit. Which is bad, that'll mean two new fenders, since the driver's side has a pretty deep dent in it, at an angle too.

I'll most likely be keeping my same doors, but I'm going to have to find some new door skins. They're in pretty rough shape also, looks good from far away, but there's a couple small dings and what not. The doors are really my only issue, it's far too impractical to use fiberglass doors, and buying new doors would be a waste.

Well everyone, it was infact partially the alignment factor, but then again, my passenger side fender is just a tad bent.

Here's a Third Gen with no hood, incase anyone just randomly wanted to see.

talk to mr.irocz, he found an oem iroc hood in fiberglass for 350 i think. i got my fiber core carbon hood in oem iroc look for 625.

These cars aren't 2,200lbs. Civics but they aren't all that heavy either. Look at the fourth gen cars, GTO's, Challengers, Chargers, etc. They are close to if not pushing 4,000lbs.+ in stock form. These cars are also more aerodynamic than many vehicles are.

I'm well aware. I believe there were not any Third Gen Camaros that weighed over 3,400 pounds, and they have a .34 drag coefficient. Compared to 90's Vipers with a .55, and C6 Corvettes with a .28, they're not bad.

The curb weight on my 1985 Trans-AM is listed at 3,300lbs. It's got almost every option these cars had excluding the GTA style seats which I don't believe were available in 1985. It lacks the aerowing which adds some weight, but I doubt that alone would bump you up to 3,400lbs.

I don't think you understood my post.

"I believe there were not any Third Gen Camaros that weighed over 3,400 pounds, and they have a .34 drag coefficient."

Meaning that I believe Third Gen weighs 3,399 or less, which I'm PRETTY sure is true. Well, it is, yet the 1992 Convertibles got very close, at 3,377.

Where is this chart from?
It doesn't seem too accurate at first appearance. I know my '85 weighed 3,260 the first time I weighed it, and the only options it had that added much weight were Z28, auto trans, and A/C. It only has 3.5 lines of RPO codes on the SPID sticker, so it is very lightly optioned car.
And I have heard that 5th gens weigh closer to 4,000 lbs.

http://jalopnik.com/5140813/model-bl...37-model-years

I believe what they did was create an average weight. For example, combining V8 and V6 convertibles with most options, V8 & V6 Coupes, adding them up, and simply dividing by four, to get an average. Or just every different model, I just used that as a quick example of what I think was done.

1992 Camaro Coupe - Shipping weight 3,025. Curb weight 3,105.

1992 Camaro Convertible - Shipping weight 3,142. Curb weight 3,220.

1992 Z28 Coupe - Shipping weight 3,194. Curb weight 3,273.

1992 Z28 Convertible - Shipping weight 3,298. Curb weight 3,377.

I'll add up the curb weights of each model, get an average, and see if it's anywhere near what the graph reads.

3,105 + 3,220 + 3,273 + 3,377 = 12,795.

12,795 / 4 = 3,198.75.

Now the graph reads slightly higher than 3,250, infact it's right in the middle of 3,250 and 3,500, which looks like it'd be 3,375. That still doesn't rule out the option of them averaging the weight of every model, it simply depends on options. I do not know if the 1992 Camaro weights I found were fully optioned.

Although, judging by 1992, it would seem likely that they picked out the heaviest model of every year, but I can't say that for sure, since I do not feel like looking up the weights of 1982-1991's right now. I guess the graph could be very accurate, or it could not, it depends what they based it on. Averages or fully optioned versions of the heaviest model for the year.

However.. At the rate GM is going, this will be the 2012 Camaro.....



I sure am glad I can't afford a brand new car right now, so I wouldn't even be tempted to buy the new gi-maro. I took a quick walk down to the gas station to buy a soda one night, and I saw what looked like a small truck coming towards me, such as a Colorado. Lo and behold, it was the first time I had seen a 5th Gen in person.

On the bright side, the "2012 Camaro" is only 22.5 feet tall, 56 feet with the bed lifted. 66 feet long, 25 feet wide. It weighs a hefty 520,000 pounds, with a payload of 750,000 pounds.

You know what the funny thing is? That truck, the Terex Titan, was manufactured by General Motors, of Canada.

I think that might be a little bigger than my S-truck... maybe. Or all the people in the pic are midgets.

That graph does make sense if they used average weights only considering available options, and not average weights of the actual number of vehicles produced. For example, the years that 4-cylinders were available ('82-'86) the weights are lower, at about 3000lbs, and years that only v8's were available (mid '70's) they weigh about 3500lbs, and in the early '90's, when a v6 or v8 was available, they weigh about 3250-3400lbs.

I understood your post just fine. My point is that once you put it into perspective, these cars are actually fairly light. The modern muscle cars are all heavier than the third generation Firebirds and Camaros are. Generally speaking the third generation F-Bodies are lighter than all the other generations are. The 5th generation cars technically aren't F-Bodies, but even though they aren't, they are still heavier.

I don't think first and second gen cars are technically f-bodies (aren't first gen cars x-bodies?) but we still call them that anyways. And if you include first gens, according to that chart, they are lighter.

If that chart is to be believed, the first generation cars are actually about the same as the earliest third generation cars. The 1967 looks to be the lightest car, but not by much and we don't really know the exact configuration of the cars being listed.

well you all should know that glass is heavy, yes fiberglass being coated in polyurthane or other making it lighter the steel yes. but what about durraflex fenders? shouldnt they be like 4lbs? .
and for the hood, id say if you want to, go out for a carbon fiber hood, its lighter then fiberglass and stronger, because im pretty sure that companies use fiberglass matting or even sprayed chopped glass when they make their hoods and not woven fiberglass, carbon fiber is woven and ALOT stronger then fiberglass sure itll be more expencive but worth it if you want to make it lighter

I know that fiberglass is heavy, but nowhere near as heavy as steel. Besides, all of the good looking aftermarket hoods are fiberglass. Unless, I want a carbon fiber cowl. I thought about it, but don't really like the idea of a cowl.

I've been researching other ways of weight reduction. Just the other day I emailed VFN fiberglass and asked if it's possible to use their 1 piece 'glass dash with gauges, by cutting out the "gauge section" of the dash. They informed me that it's possible, and it only costs 279 dollars, weighs 4 pounds. That'll be a nice bit of weigh reduction it's self.

I also decided to remove my radio a while back. Doing that eliminates the head unit, 4 speakers, and the need for an antenna. Now, you're probably thinking "Antenna? What's it weigh? A couple ounces?" Yes. But removing an antenna can cut down greatly on drag.

I've done a lot to remove weight on my IROC. No heat, no A/C, no console. No spare tire, no jack, no arm rests. When I'm done with the interior and have the money to blow on powdercoating, it'll just be aluminum sheet metal that's powder coated black. I'm doing that just to eliminate arm rests and still have that "finished" or "clean" look.

As of now, my interior looks like this:



I'm aiming for this look, except in black. Overall, I should lose weight by using 20-22 gauge aluminum instead of the original heavy-ish plastic interior panels. Anyhow, it'll eliminate the need for original door panels and arm rests, that's where a weight savings should come in.



Back to the exterior! If I decide to buy an aftermarket aluminum hood, it'll more than likely be the SS hood. I love the way it looks. That would offer a considerable weight savings over an original steel hood. Have you ever picked one up?

I'm a pretty big guy at 6'1" and 190-200 pounds, and I could barely handle the original steel hood by myself, the time I unbolted it. I'm sure that's more because of the size of it though. I'd estimate them to weigh 70-80 pounds. Somewhere in there, I think.

Dureflex fenders? You mean them r!cey "GT concept" fenders, with the weird looking "vents" or whatever you'd call them on the side? Nah. I'd rather buy the fiberglass fenders from Unlimited Products.

I've pretty much found every part I'll want when it comes to weight reduction and body parts. Right after I buy a new daily driver, it'll be time to buy that fiberglass dash, fenders, and maybe an SS hood.

Then, there's the wait of saving $2,000+ for a paint job!

ha thats pretty cool shadow, im gona keep my radio because im gona make it into a show car/everyday driver, also to note im only 18 lol. i get what u mean about the drag from the antenna, i was gona remove mine and get a little shark fin antenna from a newer car.
oh and about the hood i agree that its heavy as hell and really hard to handle by urself, i cant do it, im gona get a carbon fiber hood with a 2"cowl in it. itll be nice

yes i meant those "GT concept" fenders cz they were ones that i saw that were duraflex so i just sugested it. lol


and 2000 for a paint job???? i did mine for 300$ (including spray gun, sandpaper, primer, tape and paint)

but it is a difficult to learn if u dont know already, lol.

I'd like to paint it myself if it was any other color, but, I've decided that I want to paint my Camaro BMW Jet Black. It's a very picky, soft color. Cleaning it will be hard enough, I wouldn't wanna risk screwing up the paint job.

I've only seen one other person with a jet black IROC, so it'll kind of be original. That's what I'm aiming to do, be original.

ohhh i completely understand, cz black does show everything.

i havent painted mine yet, but im going for a two tone white and black with a red pinstripe with a paint sceme like "irockid86" itll look sick, and theres not much surface area to have to prep for painting the black so im good lol. all the paint costed about 100$